I Wish I Was A Lineman For The County...

...Then I could fix this mess! X(

We had a massive thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, right before I went home from work. Though there were signs the electricity had been off, other than that, everything was fine when I arrived. The phone worked and the electricity was on (though I had to reset the clocks and air conditioner). There were no problems (and no more storms) for the rest of the afternoon. I even called my older friend Erica and told her I'd be able to volunteer on Thursday from 10 to 1, the first time I've volunteered in almost a month, thanks to my schedule. There was some static when Erica initially tried to call me, but she got through and I thought nothing of it.

Everything was fine until I tried to go online around 7:30PM. The computer kept saying it wasn't getting a dial tone, which couldn't be because everything was hooked up right. I checked three times. All the wires were fine. I finally put the wire for the house phone back (I use dial-up) and tried the house phone. Nothing. No dial tone. Just some weird buzzing. I went downstairs and called my landlady, and she said she'd call the phone company and get them to fix the problem.

I figured, that's that. This is a big area, and I'll bet they have plenty of people out, thanks to that storm. They'll be here later tonight. Well, I waited. I worked on stories. I cried. I screamed. I waited. Nothing. No phone company. No dial tone. Even the buzzing eventually stopped. Nothing. No phone. No internet.

I talked to Miss Ellie (my landlady) again this morning. She said she did call the phone company, and they were going to show...sometime Tuesday! How could that be? This big area, and they didn't have a hundred people dispatched to fix things after that huge storm?

And I couldn't do it Tuesday. I'm going down to Cape May County for my little nephew's third birthday party on Tuesday. We've planned it for weeks. I called the phone company from Miss Ellie's house. (HER phone is working just fine.) Not only did they say it was probably something in the basement (when Miss Ellie's phone was working and also comes from the basement) and would cost almost a 100 bucks, but they refused to reschedule Tuesday! I ended up getting someone to come on Wednesday morning...maybe.

I'm royally ticked off right now. I can't believe how stupid the phone company is. We live less than ten minutes from two of the largest cities in the United States of America, that storm yesterday was crazy enough and noisy enough to knock out everything within a hundred mile radius, and they STILL don't have enough people out? Why haven't they called every repair person they have? They're supposed to be doing their god-damn jobs!

I hate phone companies. I hate phones.

I'm not going to be online again until maybe Wednesday night at the earliest, which means there won't be any more updates to The Monkee Knight or this blog until then. I'm typing this at the tiny Oaklyn Library down the street from my apartment now, and I'll probably be kicked off any moment, since I've been on for almost an hour and it's busy.